


A Father's Duty

by Squooshytaje



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: A father making a big decision, Gen, jin wasn't a great dad but he wasnt a bad dad either and i'll fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23915863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squooshytaje/pseuds/Squooshytaje
Summary: Seeing the scouting application for his own daughter makes Kirigiri Jin take a worrisome trip down memory lane.
Relationships: Kirigiri Jin & Kirigiri Kyoko
Kudos: 7
Collections: Drabbles





	A Father's Duty

He’s quiet, contemplating, as he sits at the old oak desk that had been previously occupied by those who were much his betters in the long line of Hope’s Peak’s headmasters. Quietly, he taps the tip of his pen up and down like some sort of miniature seesaw between his middle and index fingers, his brows furrowing at his forehead. It adds age to his face, lines and creases making him seem so much older than he really is, but call it a former detective’s habit. It’s a face he makes while he’s lost deep in his own thoughts.

For once, Jin Kirigiri isn’t thinking about the work ahead of him, the work that he was going to have to do to put in for a new class of talented children, of what letters he needed to send out to those who’ve been scouted. For once, Jin has set aside his work to realize that his very own daughter was joining the ranks of the new class of students. The realization of this had crashed over him that morning like a tsunami, its waves breaking over the mental fortitude of his emotional wall that he’d spent so many years trying to build up over and over again.

He’d left before Kyouko had even woken up that morning, which wasn’t unusual on its own as he was early to leave and late to return home. This morning was different, however. This morning he didn’t think that he could quite stand to look his daughter in the face and realize just how much she’s grown. Ever since she was a young child, Jin had known that she had inherited his talent. She had always been quite the junior detective, often playing murder mystery games with him when he was home. Back then, he had been much more a presence in her life than he was now.

But knowing and observing and seeing it right here, written on paper in the cold, emotionless print from the computer were two different feelings. As a father, he was proud of her for having gathered this talent, having nourished and learned it from a young age, but he was also terrified for her. He had never wanted this life for her. He’d feared it through her growing up, as well. She was a detective from birth which had gotten her into so many sticky situations. Detective work was no walk in the park, Jin knew that for sure.

He had been a detective for nearly twenty years before he’d started at Hope’s Peak. He’d seen so many grisly scenes of death and destruction, had been hired on as a Private Eye and uncovered many nasty dirty secrets on some of the more notorious people in Japan. He’d even once found out about a side job that their very own Prime Minister had been carrying out and had gotten phone calls and emails threatening him and his daughter for months. Not to mention the fact that they both had been followed around until the heat cooled off.

The last thing that Jin wanted for his daughter was to end up walking in his shoes.

He knew he wasn’t the best father. He was strict, overbearingly so at times, and absent. God, he’d been so absent and he knew it. If he could take it all back, could have rewritten both of their histories, he would. Maybe what she had needed wasn’t a strict, unfeeling father, but an emotionally available one, instead. Maybe then, she wouldn’t have turned out to be his duplicate, his copy-paste.

Jin doesn’t know how much time has passed since he had been staring down at the file on his desk with his daughter’s picture in it. It had to have been at least up to fifteen minutes now. If this were anyone else, he wouldn’t have thought two things of it besides to read the file and look into them for a short amount of time before stamping it with red ink in the words of _accepted_ or _declined_. It shouldn’t be this hard to pick up a rubber mallet and stamp the page, but for some reason, he felt like the ink that would stain her folder would be blood. It was as though Jin was signing his daughter’s own death contract if he accepted her into this school.

Hope’s peak was a haven for misfits, a sanctuary for talented children who already surpass their adult betters in so many ways. They’re guaranteed work in their field as soon as they graduate, if not before. He can’t do that to Kyouko. Jin just can’t sign her life away like that. It was too precious to him, too important.

But he also knows why this folder is sitting in front of him here today. It hasn’t been planted by his scout. It was planted by his daughter herself. This was her way of reaching out to him, of trying to gain his attention so that for once in his life he would be forced to notice her. Jin wants to be a part of her life again. He wants to show her that he loves her because he does. He loves her so much that he was doing this all for her. Every single thing he did, be it quitting his job as a detective and becoming the headmaster of Hope’s Peak, of removing himself from her to protect her life, of watching her nurture her talent by trying to figure him out for her entire childhood…..it had all been for her.

This was for her, too. He hated it, he hated that he had to make this decision. But the board would twist his arm if they found out why he wouldn’t accept such a wonderfully talented person into Hope’s Peak. She was really a prodigy, having even surpassed himself.

Kyouko was amazing and no one knew it better than Jin, but that doesn’t keep him from feeling sick to his stomach as he presses the wet ink-covered mallet over the picture of her face. The word _accepted_ was still wet and glistening like freshly spilled blood onto a contract as he closes the file and leans back in his chair with a deep sigh that comes right from his belly. He’s really just added so much more weight onto his own shoulders, hasn’t he?

This better be worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> This one's an old one, but I really remember loving writing it. I've always loved Jin's character and at the time was looking into roleplaying him back in my really active Tumblr days. Written 3.18.18. Edited only for grammar.


End file.
